A family financial downturn scale developed for the Iowa Youth and Families Project was used at pretest. The measure has demonstrated good psychometric properties in past studies (Conger & Elder, 1994). Caregivers were asked whether their families had experienced during the past 6 months any of 11 financial downturns such as postponing major household purchases, reducing life or medical insurance, and filing for bankruptcy. The number of items endorsed constituted the financial downturn score, which ranged from 0 to 11; Cronbach’s alpha was .83. Community risk was assessed at pretest with a 20-item scale adapted from the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods (see Sampson, Raudenbush, & Earls, 1997); it has demonstrated good psychometric properties in past studies with African American youths (Simons et al., 2002). Caregivers assessed problems in their neighborhoods such as lack of employment and educational opportunities, dilapidation (e.g., vacant or deserted buildings, trash), and neighborhood deviance (e.g., gang activity). The response set ranged from 0 (not a problem) to 3 (a big problem). Responses to the items were summed to form a neighborhood risk scale
